


Midnight Sun

by Qpenguin98



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Cows, Daisy's Safehouse, Domestic, Drinking, Episodes 159-160, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nightmares, Self-Worth Issues, Trauma, give martin a hug challenge, running away to scotland to solve your problems, u know some good old fashioned trauma bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-25
Updated: 2019-11-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:01:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21558250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Qpenguin98/pseuds/Qpenguin98
Summary: In the aftermath of the Lonely, Martin and Jon get some much needed time away from the Institute.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims
Comments: 35
Kudos: 448





	Midnight Sun

Martin’s never liked the tunnels before, always been unnerved by their twisting and aimlessness, but they’re a welcome sight after the Lonely. The walls are dark and close but they’re solid and that’s all he really wants. Jon’s hand is firm around his own, not loosening his grip even after they’ve been winding through corridors for well over ten minutes. Martin can’t really blame him. Even he’s not sure of his ability to keep a grip on himself at this point.

The trek is mostly uneventful, though Jon stops them sometimes before turning a corner, listening in to see if anyone’s there. Martin hasn’t seen Not-Sasha since Peter released it, and he’s not keen on seeing it again. There’s a pang in his chest, that he didn’t stop him, that the Not-Them could be anywhere and it’s partly his fault. The dark surrounding him seems hazier somehow, the feeling of Jon’s hand isn’t so present, and Martin exhales static.

And then there’s a sharp squeeze on his hand and Jon’s turned around, looking up at him with dark eyes. There’s a hard set to his mouth and Martin matches it, pressing his lips together thinly.

“I don’t,” Jon starts to say, and then stops himself. Eventually he finishes with, “Don’t. Let’s just get out of here, alright? Not so much longer. Just a couple more minutes and then—”

He cuts himself of, tilting his head down. He’s listening for something, clearly, though Martin has no idea what. And then Jon seems to light up a bit and he tugs on Martin’s hand as he starts walking again, dragging him along behind him. He almost trips over himself in his haste to keep up but manages to stay upright. There’s something in the way he’s moving, a relieved kind of excitement, that stops Martin asking what’s going on.

Eventually he hears the sound of footsteps other than their own and Jon loudly whispers out “Basira!”

There’s a falter and then a quickening, and Basira rounds a corner, holding a gun down at her side. She relaxes a bit at the sight of them, but not by much. She eyes them warily for a second, Martin especially, before loosening the tight grip she’d had on the gun.

“Glad to see you’re alright,” she says, and Jon nods.

“What’s it like up there?” he asks, and his face goes a little twisted like it does when he’s trying to Know something.

“Bad. That Not-Sasha thing is still somewhere, and I’m honestly not sure what happened to the Hunters. Daisy—”

“Oh,” Jon says suddenly, eyes widening. “Basira I’m—”

“It’s fine. We don’t know yet, do we? She could be perfectly fine somewhere. I’ll find her.”

“Where is she?” Martin asks, feeling desperately out of the loop.

“The Hunt,” Jon says at the same time Basira says, “She told me to run.”

A pit lodges itself in Martin’s throat. “Oh,” is all he says. His fingertips are tingling. Even after all this he can’t keep them safe. After everything he did, the staying away from others to make sure they stayed out of danger, and Daisy’s still… she’s still lost.

“Martin,” Jon says softly, squeezing his hand again, and Martin blinks. Later. He can deal with that later. They need to get out for now.

Basira’s staring at him with a look he can’t place and he shifts uncomfortably, furrowing his brow. He gets it, kind of, but she doesn’t have to be worried about him. He played the long con, and maybe it worked out terribly for him and for everyone else, but it’s fine. He’s fine. They have to get going.

“You can’t go back up there,” Basira says, seeming to sense his next comment. “There’s who knows what kind of monster waiting for you, plus the police from all the gunfire. You probably shouldn’t even stay in London.”

“Where else are we supposed to go?” Martin hates the way it sounds coming from his mouth, sharp and whiny at the same time. “Hotels don’t exactly thrive off taking cash payments. And we haven’t done anything wrong.”

“The Institute’s history says otherwise,” Jon mutters under his breath. “And it wouldn’t be just the police after us. Trevor and Julia, probably the Web. Anyone else realizing we’re weak and in a prime position to be taken down.”

“Daisy had a safe house,” Basira says after a long moment. The use of past tense doesn’t pass Martin by. “It’s up in Scotland on the country side. It’s not perfect but it’s not here. I have a key I can bring you, but it’ll take a bit to get out of this mess.”

“I… yes. Thank you Basira. I’m not sure where we’ll stay until then but—”

“My flat’s still available,” Martin says. “Haven’t really been there in a minute, but it’s still around. We can stay there until then.”

He’d like to stay there forever, sink into his bed and not come out for days. He’s tired. He’s exhausted. But things are after them, and Jon is there, and Jon is safe, and if this keeps more people from getting hurt he’ll do it.

“Alright,” Basira says. “Are you able to get out through here? I’m not certain where the closest exit is but you might not want to take it. Maybe the second one.”

“I know where it is,” John says, glancing back where they came from. “Though I don’t know where it comes out in relation to Martin’s flat.”

“We’ll figure it out,” Martin says. He looks at Basira, who’s still got that contemplative look on her face. “Are you coming with?”

“No,” she says firmly. “Daisy could still be up there. If I can find her I’m going to.”

“I hope you do,” Jon says, and it sounds like it pains him to say it. Daisy and Jon became friends it seems, as strange as that thought is. “Don’t get killed.”

“I could say the same to you,” she says, and she seems to steel herself. “Get going, before anyone else ends up down here. I’ll see you at Martin’s. _Don’t_ leave before I get there.”

 _Don’t know where else we’d go,_ Martin thinks to himself but does not say aloud. Jon nods, hesitates for a second, and then turns. He’s still holding his hand, and at this point Martin thinks that it would feel weirder without his fingers wrapped around his own. He gives Basira a quiet goodbye before following Jon back into the darkness they just came from.

Jon leads them to a set of stairs, grey stone and sturdy, and at the top they find a door. Jon jiggles the handle before twisting it and pushing. It opens a bit before being caught by something, and he mutters darkly to himself, pressing his shoulder against the door and pushing harder. Martin takes his free hand and presses on it too, nudging it open enough for both of them to get through.

They come out into an old abandoned building, a couple cinderblocks stacked on top of each other to keep the door shut. Martin blinks a couple times at the light pouring in through one of the dust covered windows. Jon runs a hand through his hair, sighing. Martin gets a look at him in the light and grimaces.

“You’re, uh, hmm.” Jon looks at him and Martin twists his lips. “You’ve got a bit of blood on you?”

Jon looks down at himself and sucks in a breath. “Didn’t notice,” he says in a strangled tone.

“I didn’t realize Peter’s death was that gory,” Martin says, mostly to himself. He’d heard it but hadn’t really processed anything. Everything was pretty muted in the fog, and the only thought he’d had was that it was a shame Peter hadn’t gotten his wish of dying alone.

“Compelled too hard,” Jon says absently, wiping at his shirt to no avail. It’s been resting too long to come out of the cloth. He lets go of Martin’s hand with a small frown and tries rubbing with both hands, but still no dice. He hasn’t even noticed the blood on his face yet, and Martin can’t very well let him walk out into London covered completely in blood. If people are looking for them, that’s a sure fire way to alert them that something strange and possibly dangerous is happening wherever they’ve been spit out.

He reaches out, cupping his face in one hand and scrubbing at his skin with the other covered in his jacket sleeve. He knows he’ll end up giving it to Jon to cover up all the blood on the rest of his person. Jon stops failing to get the blood off his shirt and freezes, letting Martin get what he can off his face. He’ll still want to wash it off when they get to Martin’s place, but it’s something.

Then Martin realizes what he’s doing and pulls his hands back. “Sorry, that was— I should have asked—”

“No, thank you,” Jon says quickly. He grabs Martin’s hands in his own and stares him in the eyes. Martin wants to shrink away from it, but Jon’s not Looking or Compelling, he’s just looking at him, so he guesses he has nothing to complain about. “I didn’t realize… hadn’t thought it’d be on my face for some reason. You're fine.”

“Okay,” Martin says, squeezing Jon’s hands once. It’s quiet for a moment, both of them just looking at each other. “You, um, you should take my jacket. Cover up the rest of the blood.”

“Probably,” Jon says, frowning down at his clothes. “Don’t know how I thought I avoided getting got by the blood. I was right there.”

“Heat of the moment,” Martin says. “More… more pressing issues on your mind?”

“Much more pressing issues,” Jon agrees. “Speaking of, we should probably see where we are.”

Jon takes Martin’s jacket, which predictably dwarfs him, and they step out of the abandoned building. As luck has it, they’re only about two kilometers away from Martin’s flat. It’s a quiet walk, not wanting to draw attention to themselves. Jon’s still got a bit of blood on him and Martin probably looks like he’s in some stage of death but for all of that no one gives them a second glance.

They reach his building and Martin reaches into the pocket of his pants for the key when he realizes with a dull kind of horror that he’d left his keys on his desk at the Institute. Jon’s looking at him with raised eyebrows before he catches on, checking the pockets of the jacket and finding a predictable amount of nothing. Martin scrubs his hands down his face.

“Fuck,” he says, defeated. It’s been one of the worst days of his life, definitely in the top ten, and it’s not even one of the entities that’s done him in. It’s his own stupidity at leaving his keys a place he always does. He’s also realizing that his car is still there, and without that and his keys he has no idea how they’re going to get very far out of town.

“There’s got to be a corner store around here somewhere, right?” Jon asks. He doesn’t sound annoyed, which Martin is grateful for. “We could go buy some bobby pins and pick the lock.”

“Do you know how to do that?” Martin asks, uncovering his face.

Jon just shrugs. “Probably.”

Martin stares at him for a solid ten seconds before sighing and nodding. “There’s a store a few blocks up.”

Their trip to the store is uneventful and they come back with a pack of more bobby pins than they’ll probably need, though with the state Jon’s hair is in they might end up using a couple more than the ones they use to pick the lock. Martin buzzes a neighbor to let them in, apologizing profusely for having to disturb them for leaving his own keys someplace they shouldn’t be. He gets cut off halfway through his explanation with the door clicking open and breathes out a sigh of relief for the chance to stop talking.

Jon crouches down in front of the lock and winces, closing his eyes and taking a second to breathe. Martin furrows his brows and sits down next to him.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Jon says tersely. He takes a short, shuddering inhale and reopens his eyes. His face falls a bit and he looks at Martin apologetically. “My ribs. Nothing bad. Just hurt for a second.”

“Your ribs?” Martin looks him up and down. He feels like he’d know if he’d been hurt. “What happened? Did Peter do something? Did Elias?”

Jon looks at him with what seems like shock. “You didn’t…? Oh. Of course. I’ll— Let me get this open and I’ll explain.”

He stares at the door for a moment, twisting his mouth in thought, before his eyes get bright and he raises the bobby pins, twisting and clicking them inside the lock before making a quiet triumphant noise as the door unlocks.

It’s then Martin remembers the frankly sorry state of his flat, the clean pile of laundry on the edge of the couch, minimal dishes rinsed and stacked but not exactly cleaned, sheets unwashed and unmade, and he panics briefly as Jon, wiggling his shoulders around, makes his way inside first.

“Sorry,” Martin says, following him in and locking the door behind him. “It’s been a while since I’ve had anyone over.”

Like that even beings to explain things. But Jon just looks around mildly, taking it all in. “It’s nice. Not that I’d be able to judge if it wasn’t. I’ve been living at the Archives for months.”

While that’s not exactly reassuring, it does calm him down a bit. Neither of them have been good at taking care of themselves, and at least Martin has a place to call his home. A small, lonely place, but a place nonetheless.

“Your ribs,” he says instead of dwelling on his home. “What’s wrong with them?”

Jon huffs out a laugh, pocketing the bobby pins. “I needed an anchor if I was going to go into the Buried for Daisy, a part of myself that I could leave above ground and come back to. Tried cutting off my finger but it never stuck. Always gave up halfway from the pain and it all just healed up. Melanie told me Helen had Jared Hopworth in her halls so I went in and got him to take a rib out of me. He ended up taking two out, one for me and one for him for getting his statement. It hurt more than the finger but it wasn’t me doing it so I couldn’t quit halfway through.”

Martin gapes at him. Melanie had told him Jon had gone and done something stupid to get Daisy back, but he thought she’d just meant going into the coffin at all. Not that he’d gone and got two of his ribs removed. Jon seems to notice his discomfort and is quick to carry on.

“But it worked! Or I think it did. Thinking back on it I don’t know how much was the rib and how much was all those tapes you put out for me. Maybe a bit of both? An anchor and something to… to fill me up I guess.”

“And it still hurts?”

“Only sometimes. When I move weird, like the rest of my body’s trying to compensate for something it doesn’t technically need. I can feel things slipping around in there and it hurts but only for a minute. It’s manageable. Hardly the worst thing I’ve had to deal with.”

Martin just stares at him. That shouldn’t be a thing he can quantify in the not the worst category, but that’s their lives. Maybe if Martin had been there more they’d have been able to come up with a different plan, one that didn’t involve bone removal, but even so Martin left out the tapes, so maybe that was what got him through? He has no idea and that’s terrifying.

“Martin?” Jon asks, looking at him with questioning eyes. “Hey, come on. It’s really not that bad. Not all the time. I’m fine, Martin. Really I am.”

Martin laughs. “Fine’s not a word I think any of us get to use anymore.”

Jon frowns and Martin feels the pit in his stomach grow. Bad topic. Terrible topic. Instead of dealing with it, he says, “I’m making tea,” and turns off into the kitchen.

Jon follows him in and rests against the countertop, watching him. Martin puts a kettle on to boil, grabbing the tea and two mugs from their respective cupboards. He grabs two smaller plates as well, to cover up the tops of the mugs. The sugar comes next, resting next to the tea for whenever it’s ready. He looks back at Jon, notices the blood still in places, and frowns.

“Let me get you a shirt,” he says, leaving to go off to his bedroom. There’s something probably smaller in the back of his closet, though nothing that’ll actually fit Jon. He doesn’t think either of them will really mind that, though. He takes a second to change his own clothes into something less covered in the dirt and sand he’s been surrounded in. He finds an old sweater, shrunk from the wash, and comes back out. Jon’s got his face in the sink, scrubbing at his skin. Martin’s jacket is folded over the back of the couch now, and he’s got his shirt sleeves shoved up to his elbows. The water shuts off and Jon wrings his hands out, pushing his hair back. Martin hands him the sweater.

“Thank you,” he says, and he seems to wrestle with himself for a second before shucking his ruined shirt off right there and slipping the sweater on. Martin’s not sure what to think about that, so he decides not to. The sweater fits about how he expected, which is to say that it doesn’t. Jon stares at his old shirt for a minute, the button up ruined from the blood and the dirt, and sighs before throwing it in the trash.

“Guess I’ll have to get some new clothes,” he says. “Can’t wear your old sweaters forever.”

“I mean you could,” Martin says, and then feels his face grow hot. Jon’s looking at him in surprise and the kettle chooses that moment to whine out that it’s boiling. Martin grabs it quickly and busies himself with making their tea, resolutely not looking at him.

The five minutes of steeping time is covered in silence, but it’s alright. Nothing really terrible was said, just an embarrassing comment about sweaters. After everything in the Lonely Martin can’t really think that his feelings are entirely one sided. But he’s not quite used to showing open affection and making comments like that yet. He’s spent months pushing Jon and everyone else away, it won’t just come back all at once.

He pulls the plates from the mugs and grabs the sugar, a spoon and a half for Jon and a half a spoon for himself, and mixes them up, handing Jon his finished cup.

“Thank you,” Jon says, curling his hands around his mug and sipping it. The warmth of Martin’s own tea is comforting and he just breathes it in for a second, feeling the moment, the counter against his back, ache in his feet from standing and running around all day, pit in his stomach that doesn’t seem to want to leave no matter what he does.

Jon’s hand comes out, hovering there in the air, aimed at Martin. He looks at it for a second before realizing and lets one hand go of the mug to curl his fingers in between Jon’s. Jon sips his tea and settles in, staring down at the kitchen tiles in thought.

Martin can feel himself flagging, and he’s honestly surprised he’s lasted this long. He finishes his tea and sets the mug down, squeezing Jon’s hand with his own. It’s barely seven but the light outside is dimming and he feels like his entire body’s on the brink of collapse.

“I am going to crash very soon if I don’t go to sleep,” he tells him.

“Oh,” Jon says, and suddenly he looks like the entire world’s just dropped onto his shoulders. “Oh god I just realized how tired I am.”

“You can take the bed,” Martin says immediately. His couch isn’t particularly comfortable, but it’s better than the floor, and there’s no way he’s taking the bed with Jon here.

“Absolutely not,” Jon argues, and Martin sighs. Of course it has to be like this. “This is your home. I’m not taking your bed from you.”

“Your ribs,” Martin says like it’s an obvious trump card.

“They’re not _broken_. Most of them are still there. That doesn’t factor into where I sleep.”

“It doesn’t feel right taking the bed with you here. I sleep on that thing all the time. The couch isn’t terrible anyway.”

“You’re definitely too tall to sleep on that thing comfortably.” Martin opens his mouth to spit back another point but Jon just groans, setting his now empty teacup on the counter. “For god’s sake Martin we can just share.”

That stops him from responding. He’d honestly not even considered it, and Jon can seem to tell that by the way his face contorts. “Unless that’s… I may have read this wrong. If you’re not comfortable with that it’s fine.”

“No,” Martin says, because he is fine with it. “No, it just slipped my mind. If that’s fine with you, we can share.”

Jon sighs in relief and Martin smiles. “What, worried I’d drag this sleeping argument on for longer?”

“A bit,” he says, and Martin laughs.

“I might’ve, but I’m tired. I’d rather just go to bed and deal with it when we wake up.”

“Yes, I think that would be best.” He sounds so tired, and Martin aches.

He goes to his bedroom, finds a pair of pajama pants, and slips into them. Jon comes in and Martin realizes he has nothing to offer him. Jon realizes this and mulls it over for a second before pulling his pants off anyway. There’s nothing else to do really. Jon sits on the bed while Martin practically collapses into it. He shuts off the light, though there’s still some coming through the window. Jon slips under the covers and Martin does the same with much less self awareness. He hasn’t even been gone from his bed that long and it still feels like it’s been ages since he slept.

“Goodnight Jon,” he says into the dim bedroom.

“Goodnight Martin.”

They lay there in silence for a while, both of them breathing quietly and measured in the still air, but Martin knows Jon’s not asleep. He’s thinking, his breathing’s too shallow for anything else.

“Anything particular on your mind?” he asks eventually, and Jon doesn’t so much as change his breathing.

“Nothing important,” which is a blatant lie, but Martin’s too tired to push. He’ll get it out of him eventually, one way or another. He rolls over to face him, and finds Jon staring right back at him. “I haven’t done this in a while.”

“What, slept in the same bed as another person?” Jon gives him a lopsided smile and Martin matches it. “Me neither.”

“What a relief that neither of us know what we’re doing,” he jokes, and Martin lets out a soft laugh.

He reaches a tentative hand out to rest on his shoulder, and Jon lets him. He’s warm, surprisingly so for how small he is. He’d almost expected him to be cold, but that wouldn’t make any sense. Jon wiggles in closer, closing his eyes, and Martin relaxes. He curls his arm all the way overtop him, and Jon lets out a content breath. Martin closes his eyes and lets himself feel some semblance of safety as he drifts off.

He wakes to the early morning sun and blinks the sleep from his eyes. Jon’s still asleep, knocked out against the pillow. His brows furrow in his sleep before smoothing out again, and Martin notes how much more his age he looks when he’s not awake and stressing about fourteen different fear manifestations trying to kill him at all moments of the day.

He gets up, swinging his feet over the edge of the bed and yawning, stretching his arms up over his head. Right. He should probably start getting things ready to go. He switches into a fresh pair of clothing and sets to work. Grabbing the duffel bag in the back of his closet, he starts grabbing clothes he knows he’ll want, the essentials. Underwear, socks, sweaters, shirts, pants, sleepwear, etcetera. He rolls them up and fits as much as he can into the bag before stopping. Other needs next, chargers, his laptop, a few hygiene products. He will take two bags and nothing more. Trinkets are next, books, pictures, things with memory value, though so many things have been dulled in the past year that it’s hard to find any real emotional value in anything he owns. Nothing sticks the way it should, nothing feels right, and he ends up with a smaller pile of things than he expected. Guess that makes the two bags easier.

Jon comes out from the bedroom eventually, pants back on and hair disheveled. He rubs at his eyes under his glasses and Martin grabs a stray hair tie he’d gotten from somewhere and throws it at him. Jon catches it with a confused look before processing and tying his hair back.

“Thanks,” he says, and his face twists. “Oh, Basira’s here.”

The knock on the door startles Martin regardless, and his whole body tenses. How did she get into the building? Is she alone? How exactly does she know where he lives?

“Come in Basira,” Jon says, somehow oblivious to Martin’s panicking.

She unlocks the door, catches sights of Martin, and throws him his keys. “You left those. Brought your car for you.”

Oh. Right. His keys were there. And his address is on file in that office. Of course. Obviously. Why would he think she’d get here any different? Looking at her grants the sight of two bags, one that seems to be stuffed with what looks like a few of Jon’s things, and the other that’s—

Martin snorts out a laugh. Jon stares at the bag. “Is that a bag full of money?”

“Found it in Peter’s office shoved in one of the locked drawers. Figured he won’t be needing it anytime soon so you might as well take it.”

She hands the money bag to Martin and the Jon bag to Jon. The Jon bag is not very big, a couple pairs of clothes the only thing he can see from here.

“I put some statements in there, just to tide you over until things calm down and I can send you more,” Basira says, hands on her hips. She glances around Martin’s flat and he has exactly no clue what her expression is meant to convey. “Tape recorder’s in there too, but I know another one’ll pop up if you need it. I hope you don’t.”

“Thank you, Basira,” Jon says, looking at her. “Really, thank you.”

“I haven’t even given you the safe house stuff yet,” she says, voice thin, and Martin wonders how she’s doing after all this. Not good, obviously, but he hopes she’ll be okay enough to keep up with the fallout of everything. She pulls out a card with an address written on it and a single key. “It’s a drive, but it should get you far enough away that you don’t need to worry about anyone coming after you soon. There’s a town nearby I’ll send things to. Your phones probably won’t work out there, but there were payphones in the town last I remember. Lay low but not too low.”

“Thank you,” Martin says, and he really does mean it. She’s doing them a massive favor, and things might have been strained between them these last few months, but he’s not that much of an asshole not to thank her.

“Just don’t die,” she says, like there’s so much risk of that in the Scottish Highlands. Who knows, maybe that’s where the Extinction will manifest.

Jon pulls her into a hug and she resists a moment before accepting it. “If there’s anything we can do, anything at all to help with you or to help find Daisy, let us know, alright?”

“What you can do is not stay here any longer and go be safe. I don’t want to see you dead.”

“Funny,” Jon says, pulling back. He has a smile on his face. “Because I seem to recall—”

“Oh shut up,” she says, shoving at him a bit, but her face looks less heavy. “Call me when you can.”

“Of course,” Jon says. “Be safe.”

“You too,” she says, and she leaves just as quickly as she’d come. Martin’s left holding a bag of cash whilst Jon holds the key to Daisy’s safe house, and it’s a moment before either of them move.

“Well,” Jon says, looking down at the key and the address. “We should probably leave soon. Do you, ah, do you have any food?”

Martin sets the bag down and goes to check. He’s honestly not sure. He finds cereal and still good milk as the only quick things he’s got and holds them up.

“That works,” Jon says, though Martin can tell he’s not so enthusiastic about it. He pours them both a bowl and they eat relatively quickly. It’s still early, and the drive is going to be long. It would be nice to get there before dark, just because Martin’s not exactly used to the roads in Scotland and isn’t sure what to expect.

“Can you drive?” Martin asks. He has no clue if Jon knows how to or not, and while Martin can do the whole nine hours, it’d be nice to break it up.

“Yes,” he says, scooping the last spoonful of mostly milk into his mouth. “Though it’s been a while. The last time was back in America.”

“I’ll drive us out of the city then,” he says. “Do you want to change?”

Jon looks at him, confused, and then down at himself. “Ah, yes. Maybe the pants should go. Bit of blood on these too. Christ he travelled far.”

Martin snorts at the image of blown up Peter going farther than he should, and immediately feels bad for it. Jon smiles though so he does his best to keep up that he found it funny. It is funny, but Martin shouldn’t find it so. He spent enough time with the man to not want him dead exactly, but the twisting sense of glee that he is disturbs him.

Jon rinses his bowl and grabs the bag Basira brought him, slipping into the bathroom. Martin finishes his cereal and gathers the rest of their things. He has three bags now, one of them filled with Peter’s money, and he grabs his jacket from the kitchen chair.

It feels weird, leaving this place after all the years he’s lived here. He should feel some tie, some connection to it all, but it’s just blank. He’s not sure whether that should worry him or not, but for now he’s inclined to leave it be.

Jon comes out in new pants but still wearing Martin’s sweater. He seems to at least have put another shirt on under it so the drowning in fabric looks a bit more purposeful, but it’s still a bit of a shock.

“Right,” Jon says, slinging his backpack over his shoulders and scooping up one of Martin’s bags. “Are you ready?”

“Ready,” he says, grabbing the other two and fisting the keys in his hand. They dig into his palm and he breathes in slowly. “Shall we?”

The car ride out of the city is full of traffic but relatively quiet. Jon gives him directions from his phone and Martin turns the radio on the play quietly in the background. The chatter is distracting, which he thinks is probably best for him right now. He doesn’t want to think. He’d really rather not think about yesterday, or all the days leading up to it, or the way he’d dug himself into a hole. He’d dug his own grave and practically laid himself into it. Played right into everyone’s hands even if he thought he was avoiding the consequences, and even then the consequences hadn’t sounded so bad in the face of keeping everyone safe. No more deaths, no more hurts. He couldn’t even do that. Melanie stabbed her eyes out and Daisy’s missing and Jon is, well, there’s really no avoiding all the stuff with Jon anymore.

“—Martin?”

“What?” he asks, coming back to himself. He blinks and finds the open stretch of road in front of him, no city buildings in sight. “Didn’t catch that.”

“I said to tell me whenever you want me to drive. We’re out of the city so I’m ready whenever.”

“Of course,” he says. He hadn’t realized he’d spaced out so severely. The radio is filtering in and out static now, and it unnerves him. He shuts it off with a click, tightening his hands on the wheel.

His head is swimming and his breathing feels funny but he’s driving no problem so it’s alright. He feels like a bit of a hypocrite, telling Jon he can’t use the word fine but refusing to acknowledge that he isn’t. His breath hitches and Jon looks at him, alarmed.

“Can you talk?” Martin asks before Jon can ask any questions.

“Of course,” Jon says softly, and Martin hates it. Hates this coddling, quiet Jon that’s convinced himself that Martin needs taking care of. He hates that he had to ask for him to talk even more than that. “What about?”

“Anything. Yourself. Things I don’t know.”

“Alright, um, I grew up with my grandma, mostly? In Bournemouth. God, I was an awful child. Probably _more_ pretentious than I am now, if you can believe it.”

Martin smiles and he can see Jon do the same in his peripheral.

Jon prattles on about his childhood, and honestly it sounds mostly lonely. He stumbles over a part about books and what he would and wouldn’t read, stopping midsentence and furrowing his brow before starting a completely different sentence. That’s interesting. Gives him something to ask about later, probably when Jon’s not trying to make him feel better about being alive.

Time moves by slower, but still not so slow that he’s dreading it. Jon starts getting antsy around the three hour mark, so he pulls over to get some petrol and stretch out their legs. Jon stretches his arms up high over his head and Martin hears something pop in his spine before he holds his hands out for the keys. Martin hands them over and Jon flips them in his hands before climbing back into the car, the opposite side this time.

“Your turn to keep me awake for a while,” Jon says. “Tell me about yourself, Martin. There’s a lot I don’t know.”

“What would you like to?” he asks, looking at him. Jon looks relaxed while driving, shoulders untensed, eyes focused forward to the road.

“What do you like? What do you do? All we’ve ever talked about is work, or how you lied getting into the Institute. I don’t know much about _you_.”

“I…” he says, trying to stall. At this point he doesn’t know what he likes. “Cooking. I’m not the best at it, but I like playing around in the kitchen. It’s kind of soothing, if that makes any sense.”

“Yeah,” Jon says, soft, relaxed. It’s nice to hear from him. “It does. I’m awful in the kitchen, everyone used to ban me from them when I lived with other people.”

“No,” Martin says. “You couldn’t have been that bad.”

“I set a toaster on fire once,” Jon says, and the corner of his mouth twitches up in an attempt not to smile. Martin has no such luck and bursts out laughing.

“How on earth did you set a toaster on fire?”

“In my defense it was old and there were crumbs in the bottom that should’ve been emptied out. But the bread got stuck and it started smoking and there was a flame before I realized what was happening.”

“What’d you do?” Martin asks, grinning at him.

“I did nothing helpful and stood there and yelled while Georgie unplugged the thing and smothered it with a towel.” He’s actively smiling now, and Martin’s chest feels a little lighter. “I was an absolutely useless excuse for a human being in college.”

“Not much better now,” Martin says, and it’s mostly a joke but a little bit true. Jon’s terrible at taking care of himself and doing things safely.

“Martin Blackwood you wound me,” Jon says in lieu of offense, glancing at him with a smile that flips Martin’s stomach in a good way. “And hey! This was meant to be about you, not bashing me for my poor kitchen skills.”

“I wouldn’t call it bashing, just friendly ribbing,” Martin says, settling back into his seat. “And besides, there’s not much for me to say.”

“Come on, I gave you practically my whole childhood. You’ve got to give me something to work with here.”

“I’m just not that interesting!” he insists, fiddling with his seatbelt. “You’ve, unfortunately, read my poetry, and you know what my life was like before the Institute. I’m not really sure what else to give you.”

“What’s the happiest memory you’ve got?” There’s a bit of Compelling behind the question, but not enough that it forces Martin to speak. He’s pretty sure Jon doesn’t even realize he’s done it. But he mulls it over, thinks through his memories to find something suitable enough that doesn’t involve anything Jon might’ve heard before.

“When I was eight, I think, just before my mom got sick,” he starts, grimacing at that topic of conversation. He’s fairly certain Jon’s listened to the tape of him and Elias before the Unknowing, and if he hasn’t there’s no telling what he Knows of that topic. “We went down to Cuckmere Haven. The— the Seven Sisters, you know?”

Jon nods, and his body is still loose, but Martin knows he’s listening intently. “It was the off season, not a lot of people, but it was nice out, so my parents kind of let me run around. We were walking the cliffs, not all of them, but as much as they could feasibly do with a kid and my mom starting to flag a bit, and I’d keep running up ahead of them to take it all in, because I’d never been there and everything was so _big_.”

He remembers how it looked. The sky had been cloudy and the water was a terrifying kind of grey blue that was every kind of uninviting, but it was the ocean, and the ocean was a novelty, so he was going to appreciate it as much as he could.

“I never memorized the names of the ridges, but one of them hung out over the beach a little further from the others, and it wasn’t the tallest but it was definitely the closest to the ocean, and my parents were too far back to really know what I was doing, so I went right up to the edge of it, like right on the edge, toes hanging over and everything. It was cloudy, and the ocean was kinda grey, so everything merged together in this twisting grey blue mess of clouds and waves and with the way I was standing I couldn’t see any of the ground. It was just me and the ocean and the sky. It was like… like a really good kind of vertigo, that dizzy swaying you get when it’s windy and you’re up high on something? It smelled salty and cold and it felt like I was floating over everything, that I was the only person in the world and it was perfect.”

Martin looks out the window and thinks back on it. It’s remarkable how much this, one of the happiest moments of his life, sounds like the Lonely. He knows Jon’s making the connections, and it feels sour. He loved that moment, still does, but it’s different now.

He’s different now.

“My mom saw what I was doing right after that and panicked of course, yelled that I was too close to the edge and I had to stay closer afterwards, but it was…”

He doesn’t finish that. It was nice, and eight year old Martin had loved it, but that haze of the clouds and the ocean and floating alone above it all is something more now. It’s still not bad, he could never call it bad, just different.

“We should visit there someday,” Jon says instead of interrogating him about his time in the Lonely. “Go back and see it now.”

“Yeah,” Martin says, and it does sound nice. “When everything’s done and settled we’ll go back down.”

The rest of the time is spent throwing nice memories of their times before the Institute back and forth at each other, Jon traversing college, Martin picking up odd jobs, one of their memories of their parents, another with extended family, and so on. They stop for food at a diner on the side a few more hours into their drive. Jon shakes his legs out and hisses at the way his ribs move and Martin stretches his entire body out from being cramped into that small car for such an extended amount of time.

Martin takes the next driving shift, and they’ll probably switch off once more before reaching Daisy’s safe house, though if Jon doesn’t want to Martin would be fine driving the rest of the way. They have a little under four hours left, and Martin as fine as he is with driving, is very excited to not have to be in a car. The sky clouds over and little spats of rain start up around them, and Martin sighs. Better here than in the city, he guesses. Jon falls asleep about twenty minutes into Martin’s driving shift, face pressed into the glass of the window.

It’s strange, he thinks. They never see each other outside of work, yet here they are running away to Scotland together. Into a rural house in the Highlands no less. In any other situation it would be romantic. Int his situation it’s verging on that way. They haven’t talked about it, doesn’t know if they will, and Martin doesn’t know if he wants to.

Being known is strange. He’s not really used to it, even as open and friendly as he tries to make himself with people he’s known for a while. He talks about himself but he doesn’t. His personal life is his own, and not only because he lied to get a job he was underqualified for. He likes people, but he doesn’t want them to know him.

Probably why he took to the Lonely so well.

He wants to go back in time and shake some sense into himself, that even if he didn’t feel like living that putting everyone in danger by working with an avatar of fear wasn’t the way to deal with it. He tried to play the long con and got played right back. Jon didn’t even end up dying, which threw his self isolation plans way out of whack until he realized he didn’t care about anything at all and couldn’t be bothered to keep up with Jon and Basira and Melanie and eventually even Daisy.

Caring about things is an odd thought, because he did care about things, and he does care about things, but it feels muted. Like someone hit a dimmer switch to the middle and it’s not quite dark but it isn’t really light either. He feels a little scooped out, hollow.

The rain patters on and Martin listens to Jon snore softly, glasses pressing what has to be painfully into his face. He fiddles with the radio again, finds a station that’s more music than static, and drives. They’re switching off the A74 soon, and he should probably wake Jon up to switch out, but he’s always had a hard time waking him up. Besides, one of them should be well rested to deal with Daisy’s safe house. He has no idea what to expect, but it probably won’t be anything too inviting.

There’s an hour and a half left in the drive when Jon wakes back up, knocking his head on the glass and cursing as he sits back up. It’s darker out with the rain still falling and the sun setting.

“What time is it?”

“Just about seven thirty,” Martin answers, turning the tinny radio down.

“Wh— Martin!” Jon wakes all the way up, staring at him. “Why didn’t you wake me up to switch off?”

“You were asleep,” he says simply. “Didn’t want to wake you.”

“Well I’m awake now, and you should let me drive.”

“We’re pretty much almost there—”

“Two hours is not almost there.”

“Hour and a half,” he corrects quietly. “And you don’t have to, Jon. I’m fine driving.”

“It’s not about being fine driving, it’s the fact that we’re meant to split it up so one of us doesn’t get burnt out. You let me sleep way too long, so the least I can do is drive the rest of the way to make up for it.”

“You don’t have to ‘make up for it.’ You don’t sleep enough, so I’m not just gonna wake you up when you find some. I was fine driving, and it’s hardly worth it to switch over now. There’s bound to be a town with something to eat near Daisy’s house, so we can just carry out the rest of the way like this.”

“Why do you do that?”

Martin pauses, looking over for a brief second at Jon. His voice isn’t accusatory, just questioning, and the look on his face is both concerned and like he’s trying to figure out a particularly hard puzzle.

“Do what?” he asks, because he has absolutely no clue what Jon’s asking about.

“That— that deflection. No, not deflection. It’s more that every time the chance comes up to make something better for someone else, you take it. It doesn’t matter the cost on yourself, you do it. It’s almost self sacrificing.”

“Me finishing out last few hours of a drive is not _self sacrificing,_ Jon.”

“Not always, but with you it is.” Jon says it like it’s a fact, and Martin’s a little shocked at the boldness. “Almost every time you’ll chose taking care of someone else over yourself.”

“Like you can talk,” Martin says. He’s not going to be subjected to this with no rebuttal. “You went and hatched up a plan to stop the end of the world by potentially blowing yourself up and got yourself stuck in a coma for six months. Hell, you followed me into the Lonely with next to no plan, which could have absolutely gotten you killed, because you weren’t going to let me go. Which one of these situations seems less self sacrificial to you than me taking the bigger shift in driving?”

“You spent a year cozying up to Peter and removing yourself from contact with everyone to keep everyone safe,” Jon says levelly. “You got yourself thrown in the Lonely to keep everyone safe, and you barely cared what happened to you. I’m not much better, but goddammit Martin you have to see my point.”

Martin doesn’t say anything for a while, just stares out at the wet, open road. Eventually, he comes back with a very simple, “I’m finishing the drive.”

Jon keeps looking at him afterwards, but the fight is gone from him. He grumbles something that Martin doesn’t catch and he’s not sure he’d like to. The sky turns from dim to dark as they drive, getting closer and closer to the house, and the tension in the car is palpable.

Daisy’s safe house, as it turns out, is nestled between two tiny towns in the miles outside of Inverness. Beauly and Kiltarlity, one of which has a grocery store and the other has a bar, neither having both, are small but inviting, but Martin can say honestly that he’s glad they won’t be inside of either.

“Are we stopping for dinner or going straight there?” he asks eventually, because the time to decide is now, before they make it to any of the towns or to Daisy’s house.

“I think once we get there we won’t want to leave for the night,” Jon says, leaning forward in his seat. “So if you’re hungry we should stop for food.”

“Are you not?”

“Not, not exactly?” Jon says it like a question, like even he’s not sure. “I don’t know if I really need real food anymore or if it’s just the— the statements. I can still _eat_ and I will, but it doesn’t do the same thing. So I feel hungry, but I’m not really sure what for.”

“Oh,” Martin says, and of course he’s hungry for a statement. He hasn’t read anything in two days at least, and he’s been through some taxing things. “If you need to you can read one?”

“No, I’m fine,” Jon says. “I’d rather not put you through that.”

Martin frowns. “You’re not putting me through anything. I’ve read them too.”

“It’s different.” He doesn’t say it like he’s judging, just that it’s a fact. Martin supposes that’s true, but still.

“Well, if you end up needing one, don’t shy away from it, alright? I don’t want you getting sick.”

“Alright, mother,” Jon says, and Martin scoffs. It’s nice. It’s better than the tension from before. “Do you want to stop?”

He considers going straight to Daisy’s, considers getting out of the car and immediately falling asleep, but his body will probably be upset with him if he does that, so instead he sighs and says, “Yes.”

“It’s not a bad thing,” Jon says, frowning. “You do need to eat.”

“That’s not it,” he says, because it isn’t. “I’d just love to be out of this car.”

“Oh god,” Jon groans, slumping down in his seat. “The amount I’d love to never be in a vehicle again is immense.”

They end up in a bar in the town just before the turn off to Daisy’s. It looks less like a bar and more like someone’s house turned bed and breakfast, but it’ll do for tonight. It feels family run and homey, and they sit themselves in a corner table away from the rest of the town. They’re out of place, obviously. This is a small town, everyone knows one another, and they’re definitely not from the area. Bu the waitstaff is nice and relatively quick and Jon handles most of the questions about where they’re from, what they’re doing, what sights they’re seeing.

“We’re staying up in Inverness, but we stopped here for some food before getting into the city,” Jon lies easily. The waitress eats it up and leaves with both of their orders.

“You think anyone will believe that if we ever come back here?” Martin says.

“Maybe we just loved the service so much,” Jon says, shrugging. “If we’re in the area, why not stop by?”

Martin acquiesces to that point and settles into his booth seat. There’s not much to see in this town, but it seems nice enough. No one’s asked too prying questions, and the energy is lively, friendly. Maybe in other circumstances Martin would try and get to know the people he’ll be seeing for the foreseeable future, but the circumstances are what they are and he won’t. Not yet at least. Maybe he’ll get too comfortable and start spilling his guts to the barkeep, but that’s definitely not a tonight thing.

Martin gets a soup and Jon gets an order of chips to tide him over until he can actually read a statement. It’s later than Martin would usually eat, but his schedule hasn’t really been a thing for the last year or so what with all the isolating and planning for the end of the world, so eating at nine o clock at night is hardly a food crime at this point.

Paying cash as a tourist is common, so it’s easy enough for him to pay their pill with no cards. It’s not like they need to, with the amount of money Peter apparently had stashed in his office. He never did like dealing with people, so it makes sense he wouldn’t deal with cards.

Jon insists on driving to Daisy’s house, even if it is only a five minute drive from the bar, and Martin lets him to avoid another argument. He has to admit to himself that it is kind of nice getting to sit in the passenger seat, being able to look over and watch Jon drive. Even in the dark, he looks relaxed like this. He can see the outline of his hair pulled up in the low lights, and they make Jon’s face look softer, less gripped by a never ending panic. It’s something for him to do, something monotonous for him to focus on, a task that isn’t stopping the end of the world. Jon flips the brights on when they hit the unmarked dirt road that leads to Daisy’s safe house and his eyes narrow, hands tightening on the steering wheel as he deals with the gravel and dips in the road, and Martin smiles.

Jon glances over at him before looking back, and then looks at him again, lips quirking. “What?”

“It’s just… It’s nice to see you focused on something not life threatening for once.”

“Not life threatening?” Jon says, looking back at the road. “I don’t know about you, but this road seems downright treacherous to me.”

“Glad I’m not the one driving then.”

“You’re a good driver,” Jon says, making a face as he avoids a particularly nasty hole in the road.

“Oh I know,” Martin says, grinning. “That’s why it’s fun to see you try and do this.”

“I’m not a bad driver,” Jon says petulantly. “This road is just _ridiculous._ ”

“You tell yourself that,” he says, settling back in his seat.

Daisy’s house comes into view fairly soon, and Jon flips the brights back off, pulling in unsteadily to the patch of dirt clearly meant for cars. Martin gets out of the car, grabs his bags, and immediately heads for the door.

“Should we be cautious?” Jon asks. “You never know what Daisy has set up in there.”

“I feel like Basira would’ve told us if we were walking into a death trap,” Martin says, holding his hand out for the key. Jon passes on to him and he opens the door, feeling around for a light switch on the wall. It turns on, flickering for a second before lighting up the space.

It’s small, everything pretty centralized in one room, and a ladder leads up to space near the roof. There’s a table, a kitchen, a couple bookshelves, one ratty looking old couch, and a door that he thinks must lead to a bathroom. Looking up at the loft closer gives him the sight of the edge of what looks like a bed. One single bed. Figures.

“Well,” Jon says, looking in behind him. “This is certainly… cozy?”

“It’s almost quaint,” Martin says, at a loss. He’d thought it would be something almost industrial, practical to a fault. But this is almost nice. He imagines once he starts looking through things he’ll find traces of Daisy, but for now it almost seems like a holiday home.

Jon sets his things down on the couch and looks around, taking the whole space in. It’s not much bigger than Martin’s flat. Martin sets his things down and steps up the ladder to see the loft better. It is only the one bed, but it at least seems big enough for two people to sleep in. Martin wonders if last night was a one time event or if they’ll be sharing the bed the whole time they’re here. He can’t say he minds the idea, and if Jon’s amenable to it, it might even be nice.

“Just the one bed,” Martin calls down to him, and Jon looks up at him.

“Is that alright with you?” Jon asks. “If not I can take the couch. And no, I’m not letting you take it.”

“What do you want, Jon?” He asks this instead of answering, because he pretty sure Jon knows exactly what Martin wants. He looks taken aback, like that question hadn’t even crossed his mind, and knowing him it probably hadn’t.

“The… sharing a bed is fine,” he says eventually, face darkening. “ _If_ it’s fine with you.”

“It is,” he says, leaning over the railing. It’s dusty in here, like no one’s been here in months, maybe years, but that’s a problem to deal with tomorrow. “Do you want to read a statement now?”

“No, no, it’s too late for that now,” Jon says, and Martin frowns.

“If you depriving yourself for my comfort—”

“I don’t want to deal with the after effects of it tonight,” Jon says. “It’s not just about you being comfortable. I’d rather not stew in some person’s trauma all night for our first night here.”

Oh, Martin thinks. Of course. Of course that’s part of it. He’d forgotten how much the statements effect Jon, even if he does his best not to show it. He knows about the dream hopping, the nightmares, the way that even if it is the only way to fill him up it doesn’t numb the fear factor. Martin’s read those statements, and he’s listened to Jon read them. He may act like it, but he isn’t made of stone.

“Right,” he says quietly. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be, it’s not like I talk about it,” Jon says, unzipping his bag. He stares into the bag before realizing he has no pajamas to speak of and zips it back up, nodding to himself. “Is there anything you’d like to do before we go to bed?”

“No,” Martin says. “Absolutely not. We can deal with whatever secret weapons stash Daisy has set up here tomorrow.”

“My thoughts exactly,” Jon says. “Should I get the lights?”

“Mm, yeah,” he answers, pulling out his phone and the torch on it. Jon flips the switch, plunging them into mostly darkness. Martin lights up the ladder as Jon climbs up it, and his eyes squint at the light. “Sorry, don’t want you to slip.”

“Thank you,” Jon says, dragging himself onto the loft floor. He slips his arms inside of his shirt, taking off the shirt he had on under and leaving Martin’s sweater on. His pants come next, leaving him in boxers. Martin strips his pants as well, shucking them into the corner. Jon falls directly onto the bed, body sprawled across the entirety and face smashed into the pillows.

“Jon,” he says, nudging him with a hand. “Scoot over.”

“This is my home now,” Jon says, voice muffled by the pillow. “You’ll have to kill me to get me to move.”

Martin sighs and considers his options. He could just lay on the bed and hope for the best, could wait until Jon feels bad and moves, or take matters into his own hands.

The choice is easy.

He sighs in mock defeat and sees Jon’s cheek raise. Then he scoops his hands under his armpits and lifts him up in one smooth movement. Jon weighs practically nothing to him, and he squawks in surprise at the sudden change in position. It’s a little awkward, Martin leaning over the bed and Jon squirming to get out of his grip, but Martin manages to move and set him down on one side of the bed, leaving enough space for him to get into the bed on his side before Jon can go sprawling back out.

“Christ, Martin,” Jon says in shock, not moving from the spot he was set down on. “I wasn’t expecting that.”

“I asked you to move,” he says simply, smiling. “You didn’t.”

“I did— so you picked me up?”

“It’s not like it was hard,” he says, pulling the covers over himself and turning off the torch on his phone. “You’re pretty light.”

Jon sits there, shocked for a moment, before he huffs and slips under the covers as well. The sweater sleeves are bunched up around his elbows, and seeing him continue to wear it now sends a warm fuzzy feeling through his stomach.

Daisy’s bed is a little hard, like it hasn’t been slept on in a while, which it most likely hasn’t. The blankets are warm, though, and it’s somewhere relatively safe to sleep, so Martin can’t very well complain. Jon doesn’t seem to be having any issue with it, though he seems a bit stiff.

“You okay?” Martin whispers into the quiet room. Jon turns to look at him, eyes dark in the dim lighting.

“It’s quiet,” is what he says instead of an answer, and with a start Martin realizes he’s right. There’s no sounds of the city here, barely any sounds at all, and its disconcerting. “I’m just not used to it.

“Me neither,” he says, and now that he’s aware of it, it’s all encompassing. The silence is loud in his ears, tunes him into his heartbeat and his breathing and the creaking of the bed under him. The rustle of fabric as Jon moves is almost startling in the quiet, and he can hear every brush of skin on the sheets. His hand rests on Martin’s shoulder under the covers, and he aches with want.

“Can I…” he starts, not quite knowing how to finish. He raises up a hand in explanation, and Jon nods. Martin hesitates for a second still, his boldness leaving with the light, before he thinks _fuck it_ and wraps his arms around him, dragging him closer. Jon draws in a sharp breath and Martin thinks he’s overstepped before Jon wraps his arms around Martin and buries his face in his chest. Martin tightens his hold and presses his face into Jon’s hair. It’s dirty and sandy from the day before, neither of them showering before leaving London, but he’s here and in his arms and that’s all Martin wants.

He feels so fragile, small and bony against Martin’s bulk, and he knows he’s capable of taking care of himself. That doesn’t stop the worry, and with the way the tension slowly bleeds from Jon’s body as he gets used to the hold tells him he’s right to worry. He’s not sure how many times he’s seen Jon touch a person, but it’s not enough. Not nearly enough.

Jon’s breathing slows down, evens out, and only when he’s sure that he’s asleep does Martin let himself loosen his grip. He’s still held tight against him, can’t get out of his hold without some artful maneuvering, but it’s loose enough for Martin to relax and go to sleep.

Their next day is spent cleaning and unpacking, not that there’s much to unpack. They find Daisy’s weapons stashed all over the house, guns under the bed, knives in the bathroom hamper, a different kind of gun in a cooking pot, one whole hand grenade sitting in the tea box, which Martin moves to a small box he finds and shoves into the shed outside. There’s a lot of sharp objects in that little place, and Martin is not keen on exploring them.

There’s dust covering most things, and they take turns sweeping and wiping so that Martin stops sneezing every time he gets some of it in his nose. Jon’s getting antsy, and Martin can tell the hunger is eating at him, so he offers to head into town and get some groceries, give Basira a call to let her know they’ve settled in alright.

It’s nice out, and while Martin’s not exactly keen to get back in the car, he doesn’t mind the quiet drive to the store. It’s not crowded, and while people seem curious at a new person and new car in their town, no one gets in close to ask.

He gets a variety of stuff, canned things that will last in case they need to stay in for a while, bottled water in case of the same thing, but also some fresh greens and cheeses. A lot of things are local, and they’re a little pricier than he would normally go for, but they’re living on Lukas money now, and it only seems right to support the local businesses that they’re living by.

The cheese, it seems, comes from a nearby farm with Highland cows and goats and the like. It lights something up in him, and he drives the two minutes up to check it out. The cows he sees grazing are incredibly fluffy, and a few of them are close enough to the fence that he could reach out and touch them.

He pulls the car over.

The cows look up when they see him coming, but none of them run away, and that’s a good sign. He gets up close to the fence and rests his body on one of the posts, leaning on top of the wood.

“Hello,” he says quietly, and reaches his hand out. One of the cows, a fluffy brown one that’s closest to him, perks her head up from her grazing and meanders slowly over to investigate. He holds his hand out a little further, offering it up to smelled. She sniffs his hand, licks it experimentally, and takes another step closer to start eating next to him. He lets his hand rest on her neck, gives her a scratch under the very soft fur, and when she doesn’t pull away, pets the length of her head and neck, scratching at her ears. She makes a happy little sound and Martin is glowing, reaching both hands out to pet around her neck.

It’s then he remembers the cold things in the car, and while they won’t go bad immediately, he doesn’t want to risk anything. Plus, more cows are looking interested, and if he can convince Jon to come along they’ll all get to have some attention.

He knocks on the door before going back into the house, and Jon looks up from his place on the couch, book in hand. He’s wearing a different one of Martin’s sweaters now, the old one folded up and sitting on the edge of the seats.

“Are you going to steal all my clothes or just my sweaters?” he asks, dropping the bags onto the table and pulling out the cold items first. The fridge is empty but working, and it’s a bit of a blessing. He really wasn’t sure how furnished her safehouse would be, but it seems like Daisy wanted certain luxuries as well.

“It isn’t stealing,’ Jon says, flustered. “It’s— it’s borrowing. I’m borrowing them. See, you got the other one back!”

“After two days of constant wear,” Martin says, smiling. “At this rate I’ll be out of sweaters by the time the week is up.”

“Well, they’re comfortable,” Jon grumbles, looking back at his book.

“Oh,” Martin starts, remember the cows. “You’ll never guess what’s just outside of town.”

“Us?” Jon supplies unhelpfully.

“No, cows!” He turns from where he’s putting away the groceries, can still in hand and looks at Jon. His face is unimpressed. “Highland cows. Big and fluffy with soft fur and—”

“Hair,” Jon interrupts, and Martin slams to a stop over the word.

“I’m sorry?”

“Hair. Cows don’t have fur, they have hair.”

“That’s, that’s wrong,” Martin says, furrowing his brow. “They’re animals so it’s fur.”

“It just sounds wrong,” Jon says. “Cow fur, cow hair, which one’s better? Hair. Neither are good, but all animals technically have hair. We’ve just attributed fur to animals.”

“Yeah, and since we’ve attributed it to animals, animals have fur. You can’t just give arbitrary rules to the word hair, Jon. Fur is for animals. Cows have fur.”

“You’d say both cat fur and cat hair, but cat hair is still correct. It’s cow hair, Martin. Cows have hair.”

“Cows have _fur_.” Martin doesn’t know if he’s ever been this frustrated over a word before, but Jon is pushing on a thing that doesn’t need to be pushed. “It’s— it’s furry. They have fur. You can’t just say animals have hair, it sounds god awful. Words have meaning. Fur is animal hair. Hair might still be correct but in our souls we know it’s fur. Cows have fur.”

“They mean technically the same thing,” Jon says as he puts his book down.

“It doesn’t mean they’re functionally correct. Hair isn’t meant to keep us warm, fur keeps them warm.”

“Actually—”

“ _’Actually’_ my ass! It’s fur! They’re furry!”

His fingers are digging into the can of what he thinks are beans, and Jon stares at him, similarly frustrated, before sighing and sitting back, rubbing his eyes and staring at the ceiling.

“You saw some cows,” Jon supplies. “I assume they were good cows?”

Martin takes a second to center himself, thinks of the cows and their very soft _fur_ thank you very much. “Yes. Yeah, there’s cows up outside of town. And they’re very soft and interested in being pet. Do you want to meet the cows?”

Jon goes back to staring at him like he just suggested they blow up the moon, and Martin quirks an eyebrow.

“You… want me to go meet cows?”

“And give them pets, yes, keep up here.”

Jon’s eyes get impossibly wider and Martin’s starting to wonder if he made a mistake, if there’s some cow related fear he’s got that Martin never knew about but is exacerbating by asking if he wants to meet the cows.

“…Why?”

And then all worries of that go out the window and he realizes that Jon is just no way as enthusiastic about the cows as he is. Martin slumps, beans still in hand, and sighs.

“Because they’re good,” he says. “And because I thought, I don’t know, it’d be nice to get to know the area. And there are a lot of cows. It’s… it’s just nice.”

“Oh,” Jon says, standing. “Oh, then, then yes! Yes I’d like to see the cows.”

Martin snorts. “You really don’t have to Jon. I just figured I’d offer.”

“No,” Jon says, and he looks distressed. “No I’m sorry. I’m just not— I’m—”

He cuts himself off with a strangled noise that startles Martin a little bit. Jon walks over, takes the beans from his hand and places them on the table, and then grabs both of his hands in his. Martin stares down at him, shocked into silence, as Jon squeezes his hands and looks into his eyes.

“I… I would like to go see the cows with you,” he says in a hushed tone, like it’s something more than going to see farm animals together. And maybe it is, because Martin’s throat has just become very thick and when he blinks his eyes blur over. He closes his eyes and takes in a few deep breaths.

“Okay,” he chokes out eventually, opening his eyes to a gentle looking Jon. “Let me, um, let me finish putting these away.”

Jon helps and it goes quickly, and then they’re back in the car and off to see the cows. Jon is quiet, looking out the window and soaking in the sights of their new small town country life and Martin’s got enough of a hold on himself now that the sight doesn’t make him burst into tears. It was a near thing back at the house, but he thinks it might have been warranted. Maybe. Maybe not.

He comes to the place he pulled off last time, tire tracks still indented in the grass, and that same cow is still there, watching as he comes out of the car, leading Jon over to meet her.

“Hello,” he coos, holding a hand out for her to sniff again. She rests her nose against his palm and he grins, petting the space between her eyes. Jon stands there awkwardly before tentatively placing his hand before her. She abandons Martin in favor of smelling Jon’s hand. She licks his hand as well and Martin watches with glee as Jon makes a face, curling his fingers away from her. She stands there expectantly, though, waiting for Jon to pet her, and when he’s done being grossed out by the cow spit on his hand he rubs at her head with his thumb. She butts against his hand harder and he’s startles into petting her fully.

“Her hair is soft,” he says, wonder in his voice as he stares at her, bringing his other hand up to pet at her neck. Martin decides to let the hair comment slide because he doesn’t want to get dragged down into another petty argument about word choice.

Another cow makes their way over, sniffing at Martin as he reaches out to pet it. They bring their face up next to his and try to lick him and he laughs, pushing them away gently. They come back, vying for pets until Martin cracks and wraps his arms around it, scratching at a spot behind their ear that they seem to like quite a bit.

Looking at Jon finds him looking at Martin with soft eyes. He immediately turns back to his cow when spotted, face darkening as he mutters nice things to the animal. Martin laughs again and continues to pet his cow.

Others come up, all fluffy, not all of them the same tawny brown color of the first two. Some of their horns get a bit too close for comfort and Jon gets whacked in the face with one at some point, but they’re mostly friendly and all in want of attention. Jon seems to be having a good time, even if it’s mostly for Martin’s benefit, but that’s alright. They’re here together and that’s what matters.

They fall into a bit of a routine after that. They’ll wake up, piddle about the house, Jon will read a statement and Martin will take a walk, sometimes they’ll visit cows, other times they’ll visit the villages they’re placed between, make dinner, clean up, and go to sleep. It’s simple. It’s nice. It’s so quiet that Martin’s not used to it. He’s used to being on edge at all times, keeping his guard up and constantly doing something to stay busy and keep the end of the world at bay. He knows Jon is too. This quiet domesticity they find themselves in is nice but almost more terrifying than fighting for their lives at all waking hours.

Jon has nightmares sometimes, and Martin knows he does too, but Jon’s are more. He’s reliving other people’s trauma, night after night. Some nights he wakes up, disheveled and breathing hard, and touches Martin to make sure he’s real. Most times this wakes him up, if he wasn’t already awake, and he’ll take Jon’s hand in his own and whisper quiet words in the dark. Jon will always apologize for waking him up and Martin will shush him and tell him not to worry about it. It’s something for him to do, an action he knows helps him.

Other nights Jon won’t wake up, will whimper in his sleep, tense under covers, eyes scrunched shut. Martin usually wakes at these also. He’s a light sleeper, and he’s not used to sleeping with another person in the bed, so anything out of the ordinary wakes him up. These nights he’ll try drawing him in closer, wrapping his arms around his tiny body tightly and running a hand through his hair. Sometimes this wakes him up, sometimes it doesn’t, but it usually works in calming him down.

Martin is very good at keeping himself quiet in nightmares, and when he wakes up is very good at keeping still so as not to alert Jon he’s awake. Jon’s usually wrapped around him like some kind of koala bear in his sleep anyway, so he gets all the comfort he needs from that and pressing himself further into the pillows, reminding himself of where he is and what is happening.

They haven’t spoken about the Lonely, and Martin thinks Jon’s avoiding the topic for fear of upsetting him, which while thoughtful is a little annoying. Martin’s not fragile, as much as people may think he is. He’s gone through all the same shit as the rest of them and come out alive, which is more than he can say for some. Martin is _alive,_ and as close as he came to dying doesn’t change that. He’s not fragile or broken and he doesn’t need to be coddled and handled. And Maybe Jon’s subtle about it, skirting around topics and names that might cause him distress, but he shouldn’t have to. Martin is fully capable of taking care of himself. He isn’t going to shatter just because Jon mentions Peter Lukas or his mom or his time in the lonely or the reasons he got put there in the first place.

They’re going to have to talk about it at some point, and if all Jon’s going to do is talk around him in circles trying to steer him away from his own faults, Martin’s not going to have it.

They find themselves at the bar one night about a week and a half into their stay, Brockies Martin remembers the name being, with a large basket of chips between them and a couple drinks on the table. Martin’s got a light beer and Jon’s got a scotch, which Martin wrinkles his nose at. He’s never been one for liquor, never been much of a drinker outside of social situations, But they’re here now and he might as well. Jon’s offered to drive them home if he feels too drunk to, which Martin can’t imagine himself getting to that point but the offer is still nice.

Except Martin is feeling pleasantly buzzed, a glass and a half in, and the feeling is almost nice. He’s resting his head on his hand, elbow on the table, staring at Jon while he regales the tale of some college night gone wrong. He’s large and animated like this, talking with his hands and his face and his whole being, and Martin isn’t doing a very good job of listening but that’s alright because he’s watching. All he needs is to watch. He can be in love from here and it’s just fine.

But it isn’t fine, he realizes with a start, because they’re here together, and maybe Martin’s read this all wrong and he’s still all alone in his attraction, or Jon’s expecting something different, or Martin’s deluded himself into thinking Jon cares about him at all.

The sour feeling that lands in his stomach isn’t good, and he tries to drown it out with the rest of his glass all at once. Jon pauses in his story, eyeing Martin’s glass, before continuing. Their waitress brings him another glass, clearing out the table of empty cups, and Martin sips on it dutifully. The haziness of the second half of his second beer covers up the sour feeling as well as he can hope, and the few drinks of the third just top that feeling off. Jon takes a drink of his scotch, making a face at the taste, and watches him.

“How are you?” he asks, and Martin smiles.

“I am here,” he says decisively, and Jon fights back a smile.

“Is that so?” His voice is full of humor and Martin smiles bigger, taking another drink.

“Well I’d certainly hope so. It feels like I’m here, and you’re here with me, so I don’t see why I’d want to be anywhere else.”

Jon looks at him in surprise be fore smiling fully and settling into his seat, arms on the table in front of him. “Tell me what’s on your mind?”

“I think,” he starts, pausing to sip at his drink. “I think I might have to take you up on that offer to drive us home. If that’s alright with you?”

“Of course it’s alright with me,” Jon tells him, tilting his head. “You’re in no state to drive.”

“Well I’m sure I could make myself if I needed to,” Martin says, munching on a chip with no thought to it. “But since you’re fine with it that’s good. It means I don’t need to worry too much about, about sobering up.”

“I’m fully capable of driving us back,” Jon says, a little confused.

“Oh I know!” Martin is quick to amend, reaching a hand out to grab one of Jon’s free ones. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay with driving.”

“Well I am,” Jon says, a bit exasperated. He rubs a thumb comfortingly over Martin’s hand. “Anything other than my driving on your mind?”

“Are you happy?” Martin asks him. It’s suddenly the most important thing in the world to him that he knows. “Here, away from it all. Are you happy?”

“You’re really focused on me tonight,” Jon tries to joke, but Martin just squeezes his hand and he sighs. “Yes, Martin, I’m happy. This is probably the happiest I’ve felt in, well, years. It’s nice here, as terrible as running cross country to not be killed by Hunters or the police is.”

Martin nods, pulling his hand back and taking another drink. “It was worth it then.”

“What was worth it?” Jon asks, holding his own glass between his hands. It’s mostly empty save for the ice.

“Almost dying.”

Jon freezes, hands gripping his glass. His mouth is open a bit, a shocked look gracing his features, and Martin smiles at it, closing his eyes and pressing his hand to his mouth to cover it up. He acts as though he didn’t know, and it’s almost funny.

“What do you mean?” Jon’s voice shakes a bit. Martin opens his eyes and looks at him.

“Exactly what I said.” His tongue is loose and maybe that’s not so much of a good thing, but Martin couldn’t care less. Jon’s been dancing around the topic for almost two weeks now and Martin has things to say. “Almost dying was worth it. You’re happy, we’re here together, this is the best possible outcome.”

“Martin—”

“No no no,” he says, and they all kind of drag together. Martin furrows his brows and takes a second to compose himself, moving his mouth around to make sure it works properly the next time he speaks. “You’ve been avoiding this for weeks now. You think I can’t handle talking about it so you won’t say anything, but do you think I haven’t been thinking about it? I almost _died_ Jon, it none of it would have mattered! It wouldn’t have mattered one single bit, because you’d still be in danger and unhappy and afraid and all the shit I did to make sure that didn’t happen would’ve been _worthless_.”

He takes a breath and steels himself, because it’s all coming out now and he needs to not break down in this bed and breakfast bar they’re sitting in. “I’m not _fragile_ , Jon. I’m a fully capable adult person who doesn’t need you to coddle me about the fact that I literally almost gave up my life to keep everyone safe. You think I don’t understand the _fucking_ ramifications? You— you think I don’t know how stupid I was? How absolutely idiotic it was to cozy up with Peter Lukas, avatar of the Lonely, and listen to him spout bullshit about things being better for me if I were alone and how no one needed me present and that it was better for all of us if I disappeared fully? I know what that is, Jon. I know what being manipulated feels like. And I might’ve been playing the long con with him, but that doesn’t mean some of it didn’t stick.”

Martin is careful to keep his voice down, and most of his energy is going towards that. His brain is fuzzy, and his fingertips tingle, and he knows he’s drunk but it doesn’t matter. This has been building up and he’s so tired of keeping it all locked up. Jon isn’t speaking, just looks at him with badly hidden shock and— and fuck he’s got _pity_ written all over his face.

“Even that,” he says, and his eyes sting. “You won’t even bring up Peter. I know what he did, and how he did it, and I know he’s dead from being a stubborn unhelpful old bastard and I don’t know whether I should be happy about that or not. Because I got to know him and I didn’t want him dead exactly, just nowhere near me ever again, but he’s dead and I’m— I’m happy about it. And so’s my mother, and that’s a whole other can of worms that I know you know about but won’t say anything because you don’t want to overstep and I appreciate it but come the fuck on, Jon. I know you feed off other people’s trauma, so why can’t you ask about mine?

It’s a mistake the second it comes out of his mouth, and both of them know it. Jon presses his lips together thin and Martin covers his face with his hands. It’s a quiet minute before anyone does anything, and the first person to speak ends up being Jon.

“We… we should go home,” he says quietly, and Martin just nods in agreement, not looking up from his hand. He hears a sigh and feels the gentle press of a hand to his shoulder. “Martin, we should go.”

He nods and sucks in a solid breath of air before uncovering his face, wiping at his eyes as he does. Jon’s standing above him, and there’s cash on the table, a generous tip nestled under the near empty basket of chips. Martin nods again and stands, gripping the back of the booth for balance. They both wave the waitress goodnight with a smile that doesn’t reach their eyes and the car ride home is silent.

In the house Martin hesitates going up the ladder to the loft. Jon’s up there already, changing from his day clothes, and he looks back down at Martin.

“Come to bed,” he says quietly, and he may not be Compelling but it feels that way. Martin shuffles his way up to the bed, stripping from his pants without changing into any kind of pajamas, and curls up on his side of the bed. He can feel Jon looking at him, sat up in bed and considering his options. Eventually he feels him lay down, feels a light hand touch his shoulder before it retreats. They don’t touch again as they fall asleep.

Jon starts screaming at about three in the morning, startling Martin awake. He sits up quickly, turning to find Jon clutching his own face in his hands in his sleep, cheeks and eyes covered up. His voice is raw and terrifying and Martin grabs his shoulders, scared and not fully awake.

“Jon,” he hisses out as loud as he dares. “Jon _wake up_.”

Jon does not wake up, shoving the heels of his hands into his eyes and wailing. Martin gives up all thoughts of slowly waking him up and shakes him by the shoulders. It’s not rough or painful, but Jon jerks upright regardless. Martin lets him go, doesn’t try to push for contact. He’s not sure what this nightmare was about, but with the way Jon keeps running his fingers down his scarred cheeks he can guess.

“Jon,” he says quietly, and he starts, looking at him after a second of being frozen. “Think about where you are. What do you hear?”

His breathing is heavy and he’s staring directly into Martin’s eyes, but he can tell that Jon’s listening, listening to the few bugs outside making noise, to the creak of the bedframe, to Martin’s level breathing. He drops his hands from his face, and they sit in his lap fiddling with each other. Martin reaches out and takes them in his own, and Jon’s shoulders drop in tension.

“S-sorry,” Jon stutters out, and Martin shushes him. They sit there, hands together, listening to the quiet noises of the country for a while. Martin’s not really sure how long, but it’s long enough for Jon to start blinking rapidly, eyes glossing over. He hesitates before scooting closer, pressing his face against Martin’s shoulder. Martin drops his hands and wraps him up in his arms.

Most of Jon crying is just quiet, stuttering breaths, his body shaking, and the ever present wetness on his shoulder. It makes sense really that he wouldn’t be a lout crier. Martin holds him through it the whole time, carding a hand through his hair, rubbing a gentle hand on his back. He wonders if the nightmare was so bad because they weren’t touching and curses himself for his loose tongue. His head is pounding, but he can deal with that once Jon’s calmed down. He doesn’t remember Jane Prentiss fondly, but he can’t begin to imagine what Jon’s dreams about her are like.

Eventually Jon stops shaking and relaxes, tapping a hand on his back to let him know he can let up. He does a bit, but not a lot. Jon looks up at him, face and eyes blotchy, and Martin gives him a lopsided smile. “You wanna go back to bed?”

“Yes,” Jon whispers, pressing his face back into Martin’s shoulder. “Let’s go back to bed.”

He won’t push him on it, Jon will talk about Jane Prentiss at shocking length when he wants to and it’s clear that he doesn’t right now.

Jon falls back asleep wrapped up in Martin’s arms fairly quickly, but Martin stays awake for a while. This is somehow his fault, he just knows it. He gets drunk and spills his whole guts to Jon the night before, they go to bed upset and not touching each other, and Jon has the worst nightmare he’s had while he’s here? There’s no way they’re not connected.

He falls back asleep eventually, the pounding of his head demanding it, and his dreams are filled with dull colors and muted sounds.

Martin wakes up to an empty bed and the smell of something burning. He sits up slowly, rubbing at his eyes, and hears a quiet noise of nervousness come from downstairs. He gets out of bed groggily, scrubbing at his head and wincing. Seems going back to sleep didn’t do as much for his hangover as he’d hoped. He looks down into the main room to find Jon, dressed in the t-shirt and sweatpants they picked up for him a few days ago, hovering over the stovetop with a spatula, hair pulled up in a very messy bun, quietly cursing to himself. There’s an empty bowl of batter on the counter next to him and a steaming mug of both coffee and tea sitting on the table.

He goes down the ladder, alerting Jon to his presence, who promptly flips the burnt thing he was cooking onto a plate full of similarly burnt things. Martin squints his eyes when he’s on the floor, trying to piece together the puzzle laid out in front of him.

“What’s… this?”

“I made breakfast?” Jon supplies, though it sounds more like he’s questioning himself. Martin takes a closer look, finds the burnt things on the plate to be pancakes, the coffee and the tea and both sitting next to a bottle of painkillers, and Jon’s got a plate set out for him at the spot he usually takes when they eat.

It all comes together in perfect clarity and, in the wake of last night, Martin promptly bursts into tears. Jon panics, predictably, and rushes over, spatula still in hand.

“The stove, Jon,” Martin manages to get out, and Jon makes a stressed noise, turning back around and slapping the burner off and absolutely chucking the spatula into the sink before coming back to Martin. It gets a laugh out of him and Jon just makes another stressed noise, hands fluttering out nervously, not certain if he can touch him. He gives up on uncertainty pretty quickly, grabbing Martin by the arms and steering him into the seat he’d readied for him. He turns behind him to drag another chair closer and sits in it across from him, hands going back to his arms.

“Sorry,” Martin gets out and Jon hushes him sharply.

“Don’t apologize,” he says, though he still sounds confused. “You’ve done nothing wrong.”

“I have, though,” Martin says miserably. “I’ve screwed it all up.”

“You haven’t done anything of the sort,” Jon says, squeezing his arms. “I— I’m the one that hasn’t been—”

“ _Don’t_ ,” Martin chokes out before leaning forward and pressing his face to Jon’s shoulder. He holds him close, a mirror of last night, and Martin feels a pang of guilt that he’s making Jon take care of him like this.

“You’re not making me do anything,” Jon says quietly, and Martin doesn’t think he realizes he’s just Known something. “I want to do this, Martin, it’s not just me that needs to be comforted.”

They sit there until Martin stops crying, which is an embarrassingly long time, but by the time he pulls back from Jon’s ruined shirt, the tea is a drinkable temperature so he pours himself a couple painkillers and takes a few blessed sips of tea.

“I’m sorry,” Martin says again, more composed. Jon just frowns at him.

“You don’t have to apologize. If anything, I’m the one that needs to be sorry. That’s… that’s what this was for, kind of. An apology breakfast.”

“You can’t cook, Jon,” he says wetly, and Jon lets out a gentle laugh. “And you… I shouldn’t have said what I said. It wasn’t right. I know why you haven’t asked and it’s perfectly reasonable. And then I went and caused you having that terrible nightmare and—”

“Whoa whoa whoa,” Jon says, brows dipping. “My nightmares aren’t your fault. I didn’t have that dream because of you.”

“It’s the worst nightmare you’ve had yet and it happened on the night when I threw a hissy fit over nothing and didn’t hold you when you went to sleep. I’d call that my fault.”

“It wasn’t nothing,” Jon says firmly. “You did not throw a hissy fit, and it wasn’t nothing. And you’re not responsible for my mental wellbeing, Martin. My dreams are my own, and none of it’s your fault.”

“I shouldn’t have said what I said,” Martin says firmly. “I’m not letting you deflect that.”

Jon sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I’ll admit, your last… comment was a little upsetting. But it’s nothing that wasn’t true. It may have been phrased badly, but the way the rest of that went I can hardly blame you. You’re right, I’ve been avoiding the topic because I didn’t want to make you talk about it, but I guess I did it to a fault.”

“No—”

“Martin,” Jon says, and his voice is dripping with exhaustion and Martin instantly feels worse. Jon looks stricken for a moment, like he can tell what Martin’s thinking, and maybe he can. “Do you want to tell me or do you want me to Ask?”

Martin reels back, dislodging Jon’s hands, and he lets him, face pinched. “I can’t ask you to do that.”

“I’m not asking what you think is best for me,” Jon says. “I’m asking what’s going to do the most for you. I know you Martin. I’ve taken your statement before, remember? You’re already in my… my archive of trauma. If you want me to, I’ll Ask.”

Martin stares at him, and Jon’s face has no trace of regret over that statement. He holds his mug of tea close, takes a sip, and nods.

Jon takes a deep breath and nods back, resting a hand on the table. “What happened with Peter Lukas?”

His voice has an edge to it, a pull that Martin can’t resist. It’s something he hasn’t felt before, something new and a little uncomfortable, but he can feel the words piling up behind his lips and he lets them spill.

“You were in a coma,” Martin starts, and god, of course it has to be here. “And Elias was in prison and Peter had taken over as head of the Institute. My mother was getting worse, had moved into the home and wouldn’t call me to see her as often. I… I don’t know if you listened to the tapes of our trying to distract him but I’d been thinking about what he’d said.”

Jon nods, lets him know that he knows and doesn’t have to go into it this time, and Martin breathes out a sigh of relief. “She, ah, I think she knew she was going to die soon and didn’t want me around for the end, which, god it probably should’ve felt worse but I felt relieved that I didn’t have to be there. That we wouldn’t have to sit through her hating me being there and seeing her at her worst and me wanting things to have gone so, so differently. She died, and it… I don’t know. Peter had been offering me the position of assistant, and I’d considered taking it just for something to do, something to play around with, and then she died. And suddenly that position got a lot more appealing.”

He takes a drink of tea to gather his thoughts and Jon leans forward, eyes dark and searching.

“It was still the goal to play him, to get to a point where he trusted me not to rely on anyone else and use me in whatever sick game he had going with Elias, but if things went wrong I was less inclined to care. If I ended up dead at the hands of the Lonely, how much different would it be from living? You were— I didn’t think you’d wake up, and if you did you’d be safer away from him, so if I was the pawn, it was better. And he had information, as loathe as he was to give it. He knew about the fears, about Elias and the Institute, and about the Extinction. The fifteenth one that’s been trying to pop up recently. As awful as he was he was useful. And he wasn’t even awful. He was… he was nice sometimes, pleasant to talk to. It’s a sick thing to think about. He manipulated me and used me and isolated me for his game with Elias, but as shitty as he was he was nice. And I know it worked. It wasn’t supposed to work, him talking to me all the time and telling me I was better off alone and that no one needed me, but it did.”

Jon’s resting his head on his hand now, still staring straight at Martin, and he should feel discomforted by it but it just feels right. Like this is Jon now, and he’s gotten used to it.

“The you woke up and kept trying to talk to me and do stupid, dangerous things with no care for yourself and it threw a bit of a wrench in all my plans. Peter he… I think he knew I wasn’t as committed with you awake, so he took a different angle. You were safer with me figuring out the fifteenth fear, it was better for you if you didn’t have to worry about it or me. And maybe, if you weren’t so occupied with that you’d stop trying to get yourself killed by every avatar. It didn’t work like that, but Peter got me to believe it a little bit, and it was easy to slip away. There was the time when you went into the Buried and I was terrified you’d never come back out so I set all the statement tapes up in hopes you’d hear, and I think you did. Or maybe it was your rib trick all along. I don’t know, but I know you made it out and I’d never been more relieved. And you asked me to run away with you and gouge our eyes out together, which was a terrible come on by the way, and I rejected you, and I didn’t want to hurt you but it felt like the only way for you to stop prying and leave me alone.”

Martin drains the rest of his tea in one go and rubs at his face. They’re getting to the part he’s the most hesitant to talk about, but Jon’s question is still pulling him to speak.

“And then Peter figured I was ready,” Martin says softly. “And maybe he was right. Because I was still playing the long con, I wasn’t going to let him make me do whatever he wanted, but I still let some of it slip. I let him release Not-Sasha. Could’ve stopped him, but I didn’t, and now she’s out there hunting you somewhere and it’s my fault.”

Jon doesn’t interrupt him, and Martin knows he’s deep in the statement haze because of it. He takes a drink of the coffee next, less warm but still drinkable.

“And then he tried to get me to kill Elias, or Jonah Magnus, whoever he is at this point, and I said no, told him I’d played him even if his manipulation did kind of work on me in the end, and he got so _mad_. Like he’d never expected this outcome, like I, Martin Blackwood, wasn’t capable of manipulating him right back, and I guess that’s a plus in my favor that I did such a good job of soaking up his gas lighting bullshit that he believed I’d taken in all of it. And I tried to figure out what was going on but he… I really don’t know what he did but one second I was in the Panopticon and the next I was wandering in the Lonely.”

He shudders, and Jon blinks, reaching a hand out and holding one of Martin’s gently. He smiles shakily before continuing.

“I think time is different there,” Martin says. “I know we suspected that, but I really think it is. It felt like days, Jon. I was only in there for an hour tops, but it felt like days. There was no one, Peter wasn’t there, you weren’t there, no one was, and I was all alone. It felt… right, after a while, like that was where I was supposed to be all along. Like alone, all alone in the misty sand was my absolute purpose in life, because my mother was dead and I loved you with absolutely no hope of reciprocation and Peter Lukas was nagging my every move for so long that being alone in that hazy world felt better than really being alive. It was all dull, and it hurt, but it was so present that I couldn’t handle it. It was… it was nice. Things didn’t hurt so much, and the hurt felt good when it was there. I didn’t have to worry, because there was no one for me to worry about or to worry about me anymore. A-and then you had to come bursting in to save the day like you always do, and you some how killed Peter and dragged me back out even though I tried to make— make you leave. And Peter, I don’t know what to feel. Because it’s good that he’s dead. He can’t twist anyone around in his games anymore, can’t use me anymore. But he was… he was nice sometimes, Jon. And it feels wrong to celebrate the fact that he’s dead, but I want to. And I don’t.”

Jon squeezes his hand as a comfort and Martin bites his lip.

“And this… this is all my fault. If I hadn’t gotten up close and tried to play a game I had no chance of winning, we wouldn’t be here on the run. And you won’t acknowledge that, that I’m the reason we can’t be back in London, that everything that’s happened has somehow been my fault, even if it isn’t really. It’s mine, and I want you to tell me that, Jon. I want you to tell me how much I’ve fucked things up for you, and for me, and for Basira and Daisy and Melanie and Georgie. All of it, all of us, it’s all because of me.”

Martin feels empty, scooped out, like someone scraped out all his insides as they do a pumpkin. He takes a couple shuddering breaths and nods, finished. Jon takes a second to process, and Martin wonders if there’s an internal trauma filing system that he puts these all in. He snorts into his coffee as he takes a drink, and Jon looks at him with open concern.

“Thank you,” he says, still staring at Martin with those searching eyes. “I mean it. Thank you for telling me.”

“Well you asked,” Martin tries to joke, but it falls flat, neither of them even smiling at it.

“Let me,” Jon starts, sitting back in his chair, still holding Martin’s hand. “Let me think for a second.”

He nods, it’s the least he can do. Jon looks at him while he thinks, searching his face for some kind of clue even if he’d just spent the last twenty minutes spilling the rest of his guts all over him.

“I love you,” Jon says first, and Martin stares at him. “I’m coming back to that point, but I want it said before I start on anything else. I love you, alright?”

Martin nods, a bit dazed. They’re coming back to that point. How can he drop that bomb and then not elaborate?

“Martin…” Jon starts, clearly still thinking through what to say. “It wasn’t your fault. You’re always trying to tell me things aren’t my fault, and this is me turning that back on you. You getting manipulated and played by Peter Lukas isn’t your fault. You trying to play him back was smart, and it’s not your fault it didn’t work perfectly. You aren’t to blame, no matter how much you tell yourself you are.”

“I wouldn’t—”

“Let me?” Jon asks gently, and Martin nods, clamping his mouth shut. “I know you’ve grown up thinking that things are your fault even when they aren’t, and that things you’ve been affected by could’ve changed if you did something differently, but things are how they are and you. Are not. At fault.”

Martin sets his coffee down because his hands are shaking and he’s very liable to spilling it everywhere if he keeps hold of it.

“And it’s easy to just give up, and you’ve had things to rough for so long, but Martin I need you to know how fucking glad I am that you’re here right now. I couldn’t do this alone. Have you met me? I’m a walking disaster. You hold things together, but it’s okay to need help. You don’t have to be the only person taking care of people, you can accept some help when it’s offered. Please accept help when it’s offered.”

Jon squeezes his hand, takes his other one with his free one, and stares at him intensely.

“You’re worth the world, Martin. I figured I’d made my feelings clear when I tried to get you to gouge your eyes out with me, but I do love you. Quite a bit. And this almost two weeks has only heightened things. I’m saying this because I need you to know that your feelings aren’t one sided. I am here with you, and I love you, and you mean something to me. You mean so much to me and I’m so, so glad that you aren’t dead.”

That’s the tipping point for him. He sniffles once, twice, tries to wipe at his eyes with his shoulder, and breaks down crying again. Jon pulls him into a hug again, and he makes a pained noise for a second. Martin pulls back, alarmed, eyesight blurry, and finds Jon cursing to himself.

“My _fucking_ ribs, of all times,” he says, shaking his torso out, and Martin lets out a watery laugh and waits. Eventually Jon’s ribs stop acting up and he drags Martin into a deeper hug, squeezing him tighter.

“You deserve to be taken care of sometimes,” he says quietly, and Martin can only nod, not quite ready for vocal agreements. It’s nice, being held. It feels wrong, like Martin should be the one doing the comforting, but after a few minutes he settles into it, resting his weight on Jon, who seems all too happy to take it.

They stay like that for a long while, long enough that Martin knows the coffee will be undrinkable after this, and that those burnt pancakes will probably taste more atrocious but he’ll eat them anyway because Jon made them for him even though he’s the worst in the kitchen.

Martin pulls back eventually, neck twinging from sitting low for so long. Jon lets him, looking him over with concern before seeming to decide that he’s alright.

“Thanks,” Martin says, voice scratchy from crying. “For Asking and Listening and doing… whatever that there was.”

“Trying to make you feel better,” Jon corrects, and he’s looking at him like he hung the moon. “Could I… could I kiss you?”

Martin wipes at his face and snorts. “What, now? With my face like this? I’m not sure you want to.”

“No, I’m very sure,” Jon says reverently, and Martin can feel the blush in his cheeks.

“That’s very forward of you,” Martin says, and Jon smiles a bit.

“Are you saying no?” he asks playfully, and Martin matches his grin. It feels tired but genuine.

“I’m not,” he says, wiping at his face a bit to clear it of any wetness. “What’s your next move, Jonathan?”

Jon wrinkles his nose at his full name and Martin laughs. Jon’s hands come up and cup his face gently, wiping away the tears from his eyes, and Martin feels his expression soften. Jon leans forward and Martin closes his eyes.

The kiss is soft, tentative, and Martin reaches a hand up to hold the back of Jon’s head as he kisses him. His lips are chapped and he seems a little out of practice, but Martin can hardly judge with his face covered in tears.

Jon leans further forward, resting a hand on his knee and the other tilting his face back a bit more and his kissing feels hungry, like he’s been wanting to do this for a long, long time. Martin knows he’s been wanting this for years, and the real action is different from his imagination but perfect in practice.

Martin pulls back for air first, opening his eyes to find Jon looking at him hazily. He looks intensely happy, and Martin feels elated, balloon of joy swelling in his chest until it pops into laughter. Jon lets out a snicker, resting his head on Martin’s shoulder.

“That,” Martin says, a bit breathlessly. “Was very good.”

“I’d quite like to try it again If you’ll let me,” Jon says from his shoulder, and Martin shoves at him, laughing.

“Yes I’ll _let you_ , what else would I do?”

“Deny me and take your burnt pancakes to the cows?” Jon supplies as he lifts his head, smile splitting his face.

“Oh obviously, because the cows treat me so much better,” Martin says. He leans in and pecks Jon on the lips. “That was the plan all along.”

“Well,” Jon says, tilting his head. “You’d better get a move on. Once they figure out how burnt those pancakes are they’re not going to want you anymore.”

“I think I’ll manage,” Martin says, pulling Jon back down into a kiss. He goes easily, meeting his lips with a kiss of his own, and it’s absolutely perfect.

Jon wasn’t kidding when he said the pancakes were burnt, Martin finds out later, the two of them cozied up on the couch, Jon learning his entire body overtop of Martin’s. He still eats them, but the charred edges are a bit of a chore.

“You don’t have to,” Jon insists, trying to pull the burnt food away from him, but Martin won’t let him, holding the plat up high.

“You made me these,” Martin says gently. “I’m going to eat them. They’re my You Love Me pancakes, and you will not take them away from me.”

“I made them,” Jon grumbles, settling back into his stop atop Martin.

“And that’s the only reason I’m eating them,” Martin tells him, taking another smoky bite of pancake.

Things aren’t exactly perfect. The Fallout of the Institute still looms over them, the threat of the Hunters and the Not-Sasha and Elias turned Jonah Magnus still fresh and very, very real. He still feels that guilt dragging him down, the comfort of the Lonely beckoning him like a lighthouse. But this, right here in Daisy’s surprisingly cozy safe house, with Jon on top of him occasionally peppering him with kisses and affection. This is a moment Martin wouldn’t give up for the world.

**Author's Note:**

> and then they lived happily ever after and elias didnt send that statement and the world didnt end!  
> hello everyone and welcome to my both dreaded and desired fandom hopping yet again. Thank you james for listening to me bitch about this for days, and thank (curse) you fingers for writing 19k words for a fandom ive never written for before.  
> please comment if you liked!


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